Louis van Gaal had been asked to organise a tennis tournament. It was on a pre-season tour of America, and the then captain of Sparta Rotterdam, someone who fancied himself a bit with a racket, was happy to oblige.

Only by the time Sparta’s manager Barry Hughes returned from a game of golf for what he hoped would be the latter stages of the competition, war had broken out among his players, with a raging Van Gaal at the centre of the argument.

‘It was all kicking off,’ remembers Hughes, whose Sparta side were preparing for a season in Europe back in 1983.

VIDEO Scroll down to see fiery Van Gaal lose his temper in Holland training and live on TV

Brooding: Louis van Gaal does not look to happy at Holland training before their match with Spain

His eye for a player and the success he enjoyed as a manager is why Hughes is worth listening to when it comes to the new boss of Manchester United and a man about to embark on a World Cup adventure with Holland, who play Spain in Salvador on Friday.

‘I first met Louis at Sparta,’ says Hughes. ‘He was there already; the captain when I arrived. He was a midfielder. A good player. He wasn’t the quickest but he could see the situations.

‘I’d heard stories about how he used to go into the manager’s office as captain and talk about the team. When I took over he phoned me to say he wanted to talk about the team. I told him I wasn’t interested in his opinion; that I needed to form my own view of the players. And I took the captaincy off him.

‘I don’t think he liked me because of that. Even though I made him captain again in my third season, because by then we had a good team and he was playing well.’

Great Entertrainer: Barry Hughes coached Van Gaal at Sparta Rotterdam in the 1980s

Van Gaal can be outrageous and combustible... like when he dropped his trousers at Bayern Munich

They had some good players. Danny Blind, Van Gaal’s assistant with Holland in Brazil this summer, was one. Dick Advocaat was another.

Born into a staunchly Roman Catholic family on August 8, 1951, Aloysius Paulus Maria van Gaal was the youngest of nine children. The family lived in the middle-class Watergraafsmeer district of Amsterdam, at No 64 Galileiplantsoen, a street divided by a canal with large areas of grass perfect for organising football matches.

As John Haen, a neighbour, one-time team-mate and now the historian at RKSV De Meer FC, where they played together in the youth side, recalls, it was Van Gaal who organised the street matches and would ‘mostly make himself captain’.

Van Gaal’s father worked at an oil company, so the family were more affluent than most in their neighbourhood. ‘We had the biggest car in the street,’ Van Gaal once said. ‘In the war my dad was the only one who had a car. He used to fetch potatoes 100 miles away in the south of the country for the people on our estate, who were starving.’

Louis was only 11 when his father died. ‘I hardly knew my dad,’ he said. ‘I was six when he got sick. He died of a heart attack. A hard time.’

Early leader: Van Gaal captained Sparta Rotterdam in the mid-1980s under Hughes

Van Gaal lived at home with his mother until he was 21. ‘I never wanted to leave home as a student,’ he recalled. ‘I was happy with my mum. My older brothers and sisters had left the house early.’

You cannot be serious: John McEnroe explodes at Wimbledon in 1981

He was a decent footballer. But his ability on the ball was not enough to make up for a lack of pace that limited him to one non-competitive first-team appearance for Ajax, who then boasted a certain Johan Cruyff. Even now a degree of resentment exists between the two.

Aware that he couldn’t make a living from football, Van Gaal trained as a teacher. For 11 years he worked for the Don Bosco school for children with learning difficulties.

‘One thing you could never accuse Louis of is laziness,’ says Hughes. ‘He was a very successful PE teacher. Great with the kids. And he’d be up at six to go to work in Amsterdam and then drive to Rotterdam for training with us at 2pm every day.

‘If I’m honest, I never thought he would make a manager. Dick Advocaat would come in and ask questions, but Louis would never say anything. I thought he’d go back into teaching and maybe run an amateur team. I obviously didn’t imagine him coaching Barcelona, Ajax, Bayern Munich, Holland and Manchester United!’

The discipline instilled in Van Gaal by his family was something he continues to ask of his players. He can be combustible. He can be outrageous, as when he famously dropped his trousers in the dressing room to demonstrate to his Bayern Munich players that he had the balls to make tough decisions.

But he was also the Dutch Jimmy Hill, leading the players’ union in the battle for higher wages.

And until he took the United job he was the ambassador for a national children’s charity; a role that often reduced him to tears, even on live television.

The Dutch Jimmy Hill: Van Gaal (centre) led the players' union in the battle for higher wages

Van Gaal has never lacked confidence. The way he introduced himself to the Bayern players stands out.

King of Europe: Van Gaal celebrates European Cup success as manager of Ajax in 1995

‘I am what I am: self-confident, arrogant, dominant, honest, industrious, innovative,’ he declared. Not everyone responds well to that. He clashed with some at Barcelona because of his authoritarian style, Rivaldo chief among them.

Franck Ribery was hardly enamoured with him at Bayern, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic had a similar experience at Ajax.

In his first spell at Ajax, during which the Amsterdam club won the European Cup in 1995, Van Gaal lost his wife Fernanda, mother of his two daughters, to cancer.

He sees the private lives of his players as his business. Wayne Rooney should certainly expect his new manager to show an interest.

‘Van Gaal has a method of working with all his players; not just on the training pitch,’ the Holland winger Jean-Paul Boetius has said.

‘At club and international level he will invite players in. He wants to know all about your family, the way you grew up and what you do in your private life. But it is nothing to be scared of.’

Then Van Gaal will ask members of the United squad how they see themselves as players. ‘After a meal he will always have a talk or a chat,’ says Ajax centre back Joel Veltman. ‘I now have a different picture of him. He had been portrayed to me as a right bully. And that he was way above the squad.

‘But once I was training and playing under him, I found out he was a brilliant guy to talk to. He makes jokes and respects every player.’

Veltman says he has a great sense of humour. In the same address to the Bayern players, he said: ‘The man speaking to you now is the most irritating and arrogant football manager of Holland.’ That got a laugh. Contrary to what Hughes says, Van Gaal believes he was always destined to manage.

Refuelling: Wayne Rooney on holiday in Las Vegas two years ago - Van Gaal will take an interest in his private life

In one biography he recalled growing up in Amsterdam. ‘When we were 13 or 14 my classmates and I used to hop over to the Ajax training grounds near our school,’ he said.

‘All the other boys went for the signatures of players. I went to look at the manager. I wanted to know what he was doing in training sessions with the players. It was the first season of the new manager, Rinus Michels.

‘There must have been a manager inside me, when I think of it now.’

The little boy who used to climb over the Ajax fence wants to show the world how good he is . . . before moving to Manchester United to see if he can help the club move on from the Fergie era. His history says he has the self-belief to succeed.

Dutch football television presenter Wilfred Genee sums him up like this: ‘Louis van Gaal is a crazy man but I have to say he is capable of a lot.

‘It is just a pity that he knows so very well that he has such great qualities as a coach.’